


your eyes look like coming home

by tintedglasses



Series: Take Your Winterhawk to Work Day AU [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Amputee Bucky Barnes, Crying, Deaf Clint Barton, Established Relationship, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Insecurity, Lots of that, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, boys talking about feelings, discussions of death/injury, recovering together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 08:42:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22368307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tintedglasses/pseuds/tintedglasses
Summary: He cracks his eyes open just enough to watch Bucky’s face as he sleeps, cataloging all of the details. The slope of his nose, the faint constellation of freckles along his cheekbone, the smattering of gray in his beard. In the soft morning light, his face looks softer, almost blurry at its edges, and Clint wants to reach out and touch him, to make sure he’s not just a dream.He doesn’t, though. Instead he waits, still anxious with uncertainty, but wanting to keep things the same more than he wants to find out what will happen.Or, the morning after
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Series: Take Your Winterhawk to Work Day AU [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1358812
Comments: 20
Kudos: 114
Collections: Winterhawk Bingo





	your eyes look like coming home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [1000_directions](https://archiveofourown.org/users/1000_directions/gifts).

> it is the lovely [steph's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/1000_directions/pseuds/1000_directions) birthday and so i've dug out this wip from months and months ago and summoned up the last bit of writing inspiration i had to finish is for her! steph, thank you for being such a wonderful friend. i wouldn't be in this fandom or probably any fandom if it weren't for you!
> 
> this also fulfills my "recovering together" square for winterhawk bingo. title from taylor swift, as always.
> 
> this will make a lot more sense if you read the last installment.

Clint’s eyes are itchy when he wakes up and his hair feels slightly damp with sweat. He’s not usually a warm sleeper, so he doesn’t know why he feels so hot at first until the arm around his waist twitches, as if wanting to tighten, before relaxing.

Clint tenses for a moment, his muscles corded with tension, before he breathes through the initial disorientation to realize that it’s just Bucky behind him. Because, right, he let Bucky sleep over last night.

And, right, his eyes are itchy because he unloaded his whole story on Bucky and cried about it. Great.

The little therapist voice in the back of his head says that that was a good thing to do, but it’s hard for him to judge what’s accurate—the therapist voice or the voice saying, _you idiot, why would you tell him that, you don’t tell anybody that_—without having heard Bucky’s reaction.

It’s like there are two memories in Clint’s head—one where Bucky was responsive and willing to hear what Clint said, turning around comfort Clint, and another, the same memory but curling at the edges, where Clint is making Bucky relive all of Clint’s trauma and Bucky is trying to turn around to make him stop talking, but Clint just keeps on going.

It’s frustrating because this isn’t Clint. He doesn’t do this thing anymore, where he overlaps memories looking for a negative motive so that maybe he can predict when someone is going to hurt him. Except apparently this is Clint because somewhere between last night and right now, his mind has jumbled itself up into a mess, and he doesn’t know how to stop it. Instead, his instincts are still to revert back to what he’s always done and assume the worst.

It feels so wrong because this is _Bucky_ and he knows that Bucky isn’t going to hurt him. But there’s still a non-insignificant part of him that is terrified of what Bucky is going to say.

He cracks his eyes open just enough to watch Bucky’s face as he sleeps, cataloging all of the details. The slope of his nose, the faint constellation of freckles along his cheekbone, the smattering of gray in his beard. In the soft morning light, his face looks softer, almost blurry at its edges, and Clint wants to reach out and touch him, to make sure he’s not just a dream.

He doesn’t, though. Instead he waits, still anxious with uncertainty, but wanting to keep things the same more than he wants to find out what will happen.

But eventually, Bucky’s nose scrunches and he smacks his lips, slowly waking up. Clint feels a faint smile cross his own lips because despite whatever inner turmoil he has going on, getting to see this is undeniably beautiful.

Bucky opens his eyes and blinks twice before focusing on Clint. His face is dopey at first, a soft grin, but it fades into something more serious. He reaches up a hand to wipe at Clint’s face, the callous on his thumb catching against Clint’s dried tears.

He opens his mouth to say something, but Clint taps his ears, reminding Bucky that he can’t hear.

Bucky’s face goes sheepish as he nods, and he starts to reach over to the end table to grab Clint’s aids for him.

Clint stops him with a hand on his wrist.

Bucky looks at him with questioning eyes, but settles back into his side, not reaching towards the table anymore. He cups Clint’s cheek instead, rubbing his thumb across Clint’s skin.

Inexplicably, Clint feels tears rise to his eyes, the gentleness of Bucky’s movement and his gaze undoing the fragile hold he has on himself.

Bucky taps at Clint’s cheekbone twice, his brow furrowing.

“I’m sorry,” Clint says. And he is sorry, because he feels like such a goddamn coward but— “I don’t know how to—how not to be afraid of this.”

Bucky’s face falls and he immediately pulls his hand back.

Clint winces internally at the look on Bucky’s face because he knows what Bucky’s probably thinking after what Clint told him last night. God, Clint’s supposed to be good at this shit, but he keeps messing up.

Bucky pats the bed and Clint shakes his head. “No, it’s not because you slept over. It’s not you. Or well—it’s not like _that_.”

Bucky moves back closer, his movements tentative as he keeps a close eye on Clint’s face. He reaches out slowly to put his hand next to Clint’s, close enough that he can extend his finger to tap the back of Clint’s hand.

“It’s...it’s really stupid,” Clint answers. He can’t really hear his own voice, but he can feel the way that his throat constricts the words, making them come out distorted through his tears. “I just, I know that I put a lot on you and I didn’t even give you the space to say anything back and it was such a shitty thing to do—“

Bucky shakes his head sharply, wrapping his finger around one of Clint’s and squeezing hard.

“It is shitty,” Clint insists. “I know it is and I’m still doing it now, which is even shittier. I can’t just avoid shit that I don’t want to hear.”

Bucky shakes his head again, insistent. He waits until Clint is focusing on him. He squeezes Clint’s finger again, gently this time, before maneuvering his hand so he can link all of their fingers together.

Bucky’s chest rise and falls in exaggerated movements, reminding Clint to breathe. He didn’t realize that he had been slightly hyperventilating.

Once his breath is back to normal, Bucky smiles at him, a soft, sad smile.

“I don’t tell people that story very often,” Clint says after a long moment. “And I guess I’m afraid of what you’ll say about it. And—and maybe if I never put my aids in, I’ll never have to hear how you think of me differently now.”

Bucky’s brow furrows at that, and he watches Clint for a long time, seemingly mulling something over in his head.

Clint can feel the itchiness under his skin that is begging him to compromise, to bend and fold and let Bucky have this. _It’s not a big deal_, a voice in his head tells him. _Why do you always have to make everything such a fucking hassle, boy?_

Clint feels his body tremor, that voice sinking its claws into his already raw nerves.

There’s a tap on the back of Clint’s hand, gentle and tentative, like Bucky is making a conscious effort not to spook him. Clint’s heartbeat only speeds up a little. He opens his eyes, not sure when he even closed them.

Bucky’s brow is even more furrowed now, carving deep lines into his forehead. Any other day, Clint would make a joke about him getting wrinkles, but right now, he’s afraid of what will come out if he opens his mouth.

He thinks that he’s frustrated more than anything, really. He doesn’t understand why it has to be like this—why he has to put in all the work to process all the bad shit that happened to him and get to the point where it doesn’t control him all the time, only for this to happen. For what should be a happy, lazy morning in bed to be mangled like this.

It’s not fucking fair.

Bucky taps at Clint’s hand again, corralling Clint’s erratic focus back to him.

Once Clint’s looking at him, he goes to move his hand and then stops, holding up one finger to Clint. He reaches down and picks up his prosthesis, fitting it onto his arm before pushing himself up a little in the bed so he can use both arms.

He makes sure Clint is watching him and then he slowly moves his fingers, haltingly but accurately making the signs for Clint Barton.

Clint’s mouth gapes a little and Bucky can see the question is his eyes.

He does the sign for Natasha.

Clint is momentarily stunned, trying to put together when Nat would have taught Bucky sign language and how Clint didn’t even notice. But then the logistics of the situation fade as the implications of it become clear—that Bucky did this for him, without Clint asking him to or needing him to, but because he _wanted_ to—and his eyes are welling up all over again.

Clint Barton, Bucky signs again. He takes a deep breath and then signs _I love you_.

Clint can’t hear it, but he feels himself choke on a breath, his throat thick with emotion. His own fingers twitch against the sheets, aborted attempts at saying—at saying—he doesn’t know what he wants to say, his brain short-circuiting. Out of all the things he could have pictured Bucky saying this morning, this wasn’t even on the radar.

Bucky reaches down to still both of Clint’s hands, shaking his head. His eyes are impossibly soft and understanding as he says “Don’t have to say anything” slow enough that Clint can read the words easily. “I just—” He lift his hands again, and signs _ I really love you_.

He shrugs at Clint sheepishly, his cheeks stained a light pink, but his eyes serious.

Clint lifts his hand so he can squeeze Bucky’s, feeling the shape of it in his palms.

After last night and this morning, Clint can’t believe that this is happening, but the proof is all there. And it doesn’t magically fix anything, but it gives Clint the courage he needs to be able to put his ears back in, if only so that he can hear Bucky’s voice wrap around those words. Anything else he’s scared of Bucky saying is worth hearing those words aloud.

The corners of Bucky’s mouth drop slightly when Clint lets go of his hand before he quickly smooths out his expression, presumably trying to hide his reaction from Clint, who hasn’t said anything yet. He tilts his head in confusion when Clint points to his aids on the table, mouthing “you sure?” before reaching to grab them, and Clint feels a tear escape as he nods.

Bucky hands him the aids, chewing his bottom lip as Clint gets them situated.

“Can you say that again to me?” Clint says, needing it to be the first thing he hears this morning. The first thing he hears every morning, if he can help it.

Bucky’s face breaks into a smile—not a huge one, but something softer. More reverent. The sun breaking over the horizon in the early dawn.

“I love you,” Bucky says, and something in Clint’s chest settles. “I love you, and it scares the crap out of me. You know that?”

Clint shakes his head, a tiny tendril of fear worming it’s way into his head. “Why does it scare you?”

“You’ve gotta understand, I’ve never felt like this about anyone before,” Bucky says, looking down at where he’s rubbing his thumb against his prosthesis. “It’s been so long since I even thought about loving someone. But I wanted to tell you—_had_ to tell you because I—when I was trapped under that Humvee and I was laying in the hot sand, all I could think was that I was never going to get the chance to tell someone that.”

Clint grabs onto Bucky’s hand and squeezes, trying to think of something to say.

Before he can, Bucky swallows hard, his throat bobbing. Clint can see the moisture in his eyes even in the low light of the room. “And before they came and got me and I didn’t know what was going to happen, I promised myself that if I survived and if I ever felt that way about someone, I would tell them as soon as I could. Because when I was laying there, I knew that there were other people who were laying there with me—my _friends_—who were never going to be able to say it again. I knew that I was hearing them say it for the last time, to people who weren’t even there.” Bucky pauses at this to swallow harshly again, and Clint can hear the tears in his throat. “And I just hoped that that wouldn’t be the case for me.”

Clint leans in and rests his forehead against Bucky’s, squeezing his eyes shut so tightly that it hurts, his hand squeezing Bucky’s bicep, his shoulder, the back of his head, almost frantic with the need to keep Bucky underneath his grasp, to know that he is here and he’s okay and he’s not—that he made it here, to Clint.

Bucky’s forehead knocks against Clint’s gently as he lets himself cry, trusting Clint with his emotions. Clint doesn’t know what to do, unable to move past the thought of Bucky in that hot sand, trapped under all that metal, watching his friends die. Bucky’s never told him much about that day, but sometimes Clint thought vaguely about what it might have been like, how much it would have hurt to lose an arm like that.

But this—to know that Bucky was conscious, that he was there for who knows how long, his friends dying around him...he can’t imagine the pain of that. He can’t imagine how Bucky is here now, how he had it in him to move forward, to work through all of that, to love someone. To love Clint, of all people.

He pulls back and opens his eyes, and he holds Bucky’s face in his hands—his wonderful, beautiful, _brave_ Bucky—and wipes his tears. Bucky looks at him and his eyes are bloodshot, but he smiles a gentle smile at Clint.

“And then I met you and how could I not love you?” Bucky says, his voice a little jagged, but still beautiful. “Even before last night, I knew you were so brave and now I just...you deserve to be loved, Clint. You deserve to be loved so much.”

Deep beneath Clint’s sternum, there’s still a physical ache. He has to close his eyes against the smoldering pain, the steady burn of all the bitter, sharp pieces inside his chest. It feels stupid but it hurts to be seen like this. For someone to love him like this when so many people who should have, haven’t.

A small, fragile part of him wants to know what he did differently this time—why he is deserving now when he hadn’t been before. Like maybe if he can figure it out and he can keep doing it, then maybe he can keep this. Or like maybe if he doesn’t figure it out, he’s going to do whatever he did before and he’s going to lose Bucky.

“Baby, baby, hey,” Bucky croons at him softly, pulling him out of his head. He didn’t realize that he started crying again. “Hey, look at me.”

Clint takes a shuddering breath and opens his eyes, blinking against the water that fills them.

Bucky’s eyes are worried as he holds Clint’s face in his hands, pushing his tears away with his thumbs. “What’s going on, huh? Did I say something wrong?”

Clint squeezes his eyes shut for a second and blinks them back open. He shakes his head. He doesn’t know what to say, how to explain that sometimes his mind is like this. That he’s fine, really. He’s fine and he’s functional and he went to therapy and he’s healthy. He is.

But sometimes, it’s like this and he can’t stop it. Sometimes, exposing his roots to the light makes them dig in deeper, twisting and rotting inside of him. And it takes time for them to die again, for him to prune away the sharpest of their edges.

He thinks, though, that maybe Bucky would understand that. That maybe he doesn’t have to say it, because Bucky already knows.

And it’s not like he liked hearing about Bucky’s trauma, but something about the reminder that they both have baggage, that they are both coming to this with layers upon layers of built up shit, helps center Clint a little. What happened to them is never going to go away, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t keep growing and healing and putting themselves back together bit by bit.

He’s not alone. He doesn’t have to hide anymore.

“I love you, too,” Clint says, because there’s nothing else left to say. “Fuck, I really love you, too.”

It takes a second to register, but when it does, a beautiful smile breaks across Bucky’s face and some of the loose ends inside of Clint feel like they knit together, because how could you react any differently to someone like Bucky looking at you like that.

He leans down and kisses Clint, gentle, gentle, gentle, before pulling back to say, “I love you” again.

Clint glances away, picking at the bedsheet, “I haven’t been told that much, you know? And I just...I really want to be worth it.”

Bucky leans his forehead against Clint’s, nudging Clint’s face up to be level with his. “You already are worth it, sweetheart. I love you so much and you are worth every little bit of it.” He pulls back to look Clint in the eyes. “I’m so sorry that you didn’t hear that as much as you deserved, but I want to tell you every day.”

Clint can see the sincerity in Bucky’s eyes and it still doesn’t feel quite real that someone could feel this way about him, but he’s too tired to question it anymore this morning. Besides, he figures they’ve got plenty of time for Bucky to keep convincing him anyways.

So for now, he leans in and kisses Bucky one more time, and then pulls back to make a mock-disgusted face. “Ew, gross, babe. You need to brush your teeth.”

Bucky blinks at him and for a second, Clint thinks that maybe he’s going to call Clint out for changing the subject so abruptly. Instead, he just barks out a laugh, shoving lightly at Clint’s shoulder. “You’re such a dumbass.”

“Yeah, yeah. But you love me anyways apparently,” Clint says, feeling his cheeks heat up.

Bucky leans in and presses a long, firm kiss against Clint’s mouth and Clint feels some of the tension he didn’t even know was there leak out of him. “I really do,” he says, when he pulls back.

Then, he climbs out of bed, pausing to kiss Clint’s forehead, and smiles at Clint over his shoulder when Clint calls out “I love you, too” after him.

When the door clicks shut, Clint lies back on the bed, closes his eyes, and lets himself breathe.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading <3
> 
> tumblr post. 


End file.
